Unexpected turns in Rotary District 5280 Governor-Elect Gregory O’Brien’s life have led him exactly where he wants to be: in Palos Verdes, with the opportunity to serve
Rancho Palos Verdes resident Greg O’Brien’s life on The Hill came quite unexpectedly. A longtime resident of Glendora, he and his wife Carolyn had no plans to move from their 20-year home, where the couple had raised their family. “If anything, we would have moved to another home in Glendora, but not gone any further North, East, West or South,” he said.
But one day, while his wife was gardening, she was approached by a real estate agent who pulled up to the house.
“I was in the back yard, cleaning the pool, when she came back and said to me ‘Well, a Realtor has a client who’s interested in our neighborhood and interested in our house.’”
“What’d you say?” he asked her.
“I told him no.”
“Right answer.”
Three days later, the O’Briens found themselves in escrow — a young, wealthy Turkish man, with a fresh marriage and family living in the area made the couple an all-cash offer.
“I said to my wife, ‘Well, the worst that’ll happen is he won’t have the cash.’”
As it turns out, he had the cash — five weeks later, the two found themselves in Palos Verdes thanks to a tip from an old college friend.
“We’ve been here ever since,” he said.
O’Brien is the Governor-Elect of Rotary District 5280, which stretches from the Santa Clarita Valley to Palos Verdes.
O’Brien was a freshman at the University of Southern California, walking campus when he caught a glimpse of the Daily Trojan, and felt an old itch. He had been the managing editor at his high school newspaper and the sight of the campus daily brought up “that old love,” he said.
It wasn’t long before he found himself working in the campus newsroom.
A year later, he found a note from the newspaper’s journalism advisor, asking him for a private meeting in his office.
“He said to me, ‘are you sure you shouldn’t be a journalism major,’ and I said back to him ‘why, I was thinking the same thing!’”
Yet, something didn’t quite feel right to him, and a public relations job with the Long Beach Chamber of Commerce didn’t offer the long-term career prospects that he had hoped for.
Thus, he steered his career a different direction.
“My grandfather was a lawyer, my uncle was a lawyer and my mom, late in life, chose to become a lawyer, so I decided to try to see if it was something I’d like to do for myself,” O’Brien said.
He found it to be exactly what he was looking for, leading to a 32 year law career, with 20 years as a judge.
The difference between the two careers, he said, was simple. “It was a case of reporting or describing or narrating the issues of the day, versus being engaged in problem-solving — that aspect is what attracted me to law.”
After graduating from Whittier Law School in 1972, he began working as a Deputy Los Angeles City Attorney, specializing in environmental law.
That experience led him to a job in the private sector with a company that he’d occasionally found himself standing across the room from while working for the City Attorney’s Office.
“I was noticed by a headhunter, who told me that the Southern California Edison company was looking for an environmental lawyer, and I said ‘well, they know all about me.’”
He spent six years working for SCE, representing the company before various local, state and federal regulatory boards and commissions.
After 12 years arguing before the bench, O’Brien found himself nominated to join the ranks of the County Superior Court. He worked 20 years there as a settlement judge before retiring.
That brought him back to Rotary, an organization he became “enamored with” after becoming familiar with Rotary’s mission to provide service and advance goodwill and peace through their work.
O’Brien recalled a trip to Istanbul, alongside another group of mediators, to participate in an international conference, with delegates from 50 countries.
“That included countries that are, in many respects, enemies,” O’Brien said. Representatives from Palestine and Israel were in attendance. “We got along famously — we talked about everything, from meditating on the international level all the way down to neighborhood, tribal and schoolyard issues.”
His group was the first Rotary International Vocational Training Team in the area of peace and conflict resolution.
On the local level, O’Brien’s work with the Palos Verdes Peninsula Rotary Club involves him and his fellow Rotarians in a variety of projects, from serving Christmas dinners to the homeless, to working with organizations such as Harbor Interfaith, to picking up litter and replanting hillsides.
Since his retirement in 2005, O’Brien has involved himself in local government and neighborhood organizations, ranging from becoming president of his homeowners association to joining the oversight and redevelopment committees for Rancho Palos Verdes.
“If I’m not busy, I get bored,” he said.
And though he didn’t predict his last move, from Glendora to The Hill, it’s safe to say that he’s found a home in Palos Verdes, if only because, unlike living inland, he doesn’t have to run air conditioning.
“It’s paradise, and a well-kept secret from the rest of Los Angeles. I don’t think many people realize just how special this place is,” he said.
“The best part of this community on the hill, of the four cities that combine to form a collective community, is that we’ve made so many friends, and the people here are successful without being snooty,” O’Brien said.
